


Saving Light

by Locknkey1



Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abuse, Darkness, Death, Fantasy, Gen, Reincarnation, Sadness, Wingfic, light - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:33:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locknkey1/pseuds/Locknkey1
Summary: A story about a boy and an angel trying to save themselves and each other.Part 1:“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it.” -Terry PratchettMost people naturally fear the Darkness. Darkness creeps along the edges of the Light. Darkness obscures and distorts shapes. Darkness can make a peaceful scene into a haunted nightmare. Nonetheless, Darkness is not evil. Darkness can be a refuge for those burned by the light or a calming friend. Darkness can be a shield or a sword. It merely depends on the wielder. For Uri Darkness was both.----------Part 2:“In the cold, shivering twilight, preceding the daybreak of civilization, the dominating emotion of man was fear”. -Paul HarrisDarkness, warmth, quiet, and softness were the first things that the child felt when he woke up. Something warm, soft and slightly heavy covered him.————Part 3:“It is always calm before the storm.” -Unknown author/common phraseThe next two weeks passed by in a blur of silence, sleep, and peace.
Relationships: Original Male Character & Original Male Character
Kudos: 2





	Saving Light

**Author's Note:**

> Writer's block is horrible, so I am posting this thing I wrote two years ago to feel productive.

Part 1:  
“Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first and is waiting for it.” -Terry Pratchett  
Most people naturally fear the Darkness. Darkness creeps along the edges of the Light. Darkness obscures and distorts shapes. Darkness can make a peaceful scene into a haunted nightmare. Nonetheless, Darkness is not evil. Darkness can be a refuge for those burned by the light or a calming friend. Darkness can be a shield or a sword. It merely depends on the wielder. For Uri Darkness was both. He lived in Darkness so he couldn’t help but feel divided about it. The Darkness was his refuge and his cage. The Darkness hid him from the humans but it also chased away the Light that Uri craved. The Light that gave Uri hope when he had none. Hope that one day he would be able to soar through the sky again. The Light was the only reason that Uri had not given up or fallen into madness. The only source of that saving light came from a large hole in the middle of the ceiling.

_When I was younger and hopeful I would fly up to the hole and try to squeeze through. Desperate to reach the sky, I would try again and again to escape. Despite how hard I tried I could never fit my wings between the sections of the grate.  
**Flashback**  
Uri spread his wings as far as he could in the 8 strides by 8 strides hole. His goal was to escape through the round hole that was situated in one of the corners of the ceiling. Tensing his back muscles, he jumped and in a flurry of wing beats somehow managed to take flight in the small space. Uri flew up to the top of the hole and grabbed ahold of one of the bars in the grate. He pulled his head and shoulders up and through the top of the grate and grabbed the edge of the hole for leverage.  
Pausing for a small break, Uri looked up into the sky and gazed in wonder at the sky. It was so blue and full of promises of freedom that Uri wanted to cry. With renewed determination, Uri pulled in his wings as close to his back as possible and hauled himself out of the hole with all his might. He managed to get the lesser coverts of his wings through the bars of the grate before he couldn’t go any farther. Uri pulled as hard as he could but couldn’t go any further.  
With a frustrated cry, he tugged at the bars and accidentally snagged one of his feathers on the bars. The feather tore away with a sharp pain, a pain not unlike the feeling of pulling out a clump of hair, and he let go of the bars in surprise. As Uri plummeted to the floor he tried to slow his fall with his wings but he was too late. He landed on his right ankle with a crack and with a cry of pain he crumpled to the ground.  
**Flashback end**  
After the third time I broke my ankle from the fall back down I stopped trying. _

Once in a while, Uri would hear the sounds of footsteps and a group of humans, men and women both would stand on or around the grate that covered the hole in the ceiling. They would yell down into the hole in the ground and their vitriol would echo down to Uri. He hid under his blankets and cot but he still couldn’t block out the worst of the curses.  
“You deserve to be in there!”  
“Beast!”  
“Monster!”  
“Freak!”  
“You should just die!” 

_I believe them._

The humans would stay and yell at Uri until their voices were hoarse and their anger was sated. Uri would hide from the humans so they couldn’t see him in Darkness’s embrace. If the humans were prone to listening they might have heard the choked of gasps of as a person tried, and failed, to stifle the sounds of their sobs. If they had heard that sound maybe they might have stopped. Maybe they might have felt a pang of regret. Maybe they would have left Uri alone. Alas, they did not do any of these things and Uri was left to his misery long after the humans left. 

The days came and went in a miserable and lonely spiral for years until one day something changed.

It was a dark night where storm clouds covered up the moon. A small child ran through the unforgiving rain holding up a small oil lamp to try to see through the darkness. The candle in the lamp was quickly burning out and the child wouldn’t have the light from it for long. He was soaked to the bone and his clothes were covered in mud stains. The child was crying but no one could hear him over the overwhelming sound of the pounding rain, growling thunder and howling wind. Every time the lightning flashed and thunder rumbled the child would flinch and cried harder.  
As he ran, the child saw something glint in the darkness, reflecting the light from a lightning strike. The reflected light was a few feet to the left of where he stood. In a fit of desperation, the child ran toward the reflected light. Unable to see well in darkness, the child tripped over a rock and fell toward the source of the reflected light. As he fell, he could see that the light was reflecting off the metal grate that was covering a hole. The child fell head first into the hole screaming. This time his cries were heard.  
The last thing the child saw before he fainted was the silhouette of a man with feathered wings. “Angel?” he murmured, before passing out in the warm embrace of his savior.

Part 2

“In the cold, shivering twilight, preceding the daybreak of civilization, the dominating emotion of man was fear”. -Paul Harris

Darkness, warmth, quiet, and softness were the first things that the child felt when he woke up. Something warm, soft and slightly heavy covered him. Behind him, the child could hear and feel a fire burning quietly. It didn’t feel like he was laying on the straw he used for a bed in the village. Everything was too soft and warm. Instantly wary but half-asleep, he tried to turn toward the fire to get his bearings but a sharp pain cut through his head. Pain like a small lance pierced his forehead and the child cried out and tried to curl into a ball before he realized. It was making the pain worse.

“Easy. Shh. You’re okay.” a soft, masculine voice cooed from next to the child. “Why don’t I move your head back onto the pillow. Is that okay?”

The child tried to move his head to see the man and nod, but both aborted motions rekindled the pain in his head, preventing him from moving. He whined quietly, hoping that the man would understand.

“Shh. It’s okay. You don’t have to answer. I am just going to carefully move your head” the man said soothingly. The man picked the child’s head up gently and placed a pillow under it. Once the child’s head was on the pillow, the pain lessened and the heavy comfort of sleep pulled him back under a sea of dreams.

_I forgot to say thank you…_

\---

The second time that the child awoke, he was more careful when he moved his head. To his relief, the pain had diminished to a tolerable level while he slept. Cautiously he sat up and looked around. The room he was in was lighter than it was before. The light of the fire joining with the light from a large hole in the ceiling, both illuminating the room quite well. The room was made of stone with no visible exits. In the center of the room, between the ceiling hole and the pile of furs that the child laid on, crouched a man tending a small fire with his back to the child. The child tried to come up with some words to say to get the man’s attention but it turns out he needn’t have bothered.

As if sensing the child’s gaze, the man turned around and smiled. From the child’s perspective, the man was very tall and handsome. He was the type of man that the older girls in his village would swoon over and hope to marry. The dark black hair, nice looking trousers and cloak he donned attributed to the knight-in-shining-armor look. The child couldn’t help but think that it was unfair that he couldn’t look like that.

_Maybe if I was pretty like this man the others would be nicer to me._

The man tilted his head and smiled gently. “Hello little one, are you okay?”

_Oh. He was the one who helped me last night._

The child blushed from embarrassment and nodded his head quickly, his voice getting stuck in his throat. Stuttering softly the child replied, “I-i am ok-kay. Th-thank you for helping m-me.”

Taking pity on the child, the man stood up and walked over to the fur bed and sat down in front of the child. “No problem kid. Since we just met I believe introductions are in order. My name is Uri. What is your name?” The man- Uri- asked holding out his right hand.

“M-my name is Cerin.” Unsure what he was supposed to do Cerin reached out his right hand too. Uri grasped Cerin’s right hand in his own and shook it once, up and down.

“It is nice to meet you Cerin. You gave me quite a scare last night. The last thing I expected was for you to fall down into my humble abode.” The last part was spoken oddly. A bit like how the older children would talk back to their parents.

“You live down here, Mister?”

“Yes, by a certain definition of living.” Uri’s smile twisted for a moment before he shook his head. “Ah, never mind. How do you feel? Any lingering pain or soreness?”

Cerin shifted his weight a little, but couldn’t find anything else wrong with his body besides the slight pain on his head. He told Uri as much and the man nodded. Uri stood up and walked over to the fire and picked up a small pot that had been resting over the flames. He took a small wooden bowl and filled it with some of the liquid in the pot. After he set the pot down on the stone floor near the fire Uri walked back over to Cerin.

“Here drink this. It is an herbal tea.” Uri holds the bowl out to Cerin. “Be careful it is hot.”

Cerin blows on the faintly green liquid and takes a small sip. The tea is sweet and light and very refreshing. “Thank you. It is very good. What type of tea is this?”

“ I am not sure,” Uri replied. “The priest that comes by every once in awhile throws down fresh branches of the leaves that this is made from. He believes that the branches should ‘Purify my soul’ or something like that. Nonetheless, it makes great tea so I can’t really complain.”

A shadow passed over Uri’s face when he said this. Despite his burning curiosity, Cerin refrained from asking why the priest would do that. _I wonder if that is what my face looks like when I think about Mother._ Cerin nodded his head and went back to drinking the tea.

“How do you get out of here Uri? To get food and other things?”

“I can’t really leave. I don’t fit through the bars on that hole. People occasionally throw food down and animals fall down here too so I have enough. Just barely, but enough.”

“Why are you down here? Did bad people trap you here?”

“Ah, that is the golden question, isn’t it. Well you see- It is kind of- I don’t know if I should tell you.” Uri looked up at the ceiling and then sighed. “But I guess I owe you an answer since you have to stay here until you recover.”

“My given name, is Azrael, the Angel of Death. I chose the name Uri” Uri stood up and took off his cloak. Underneath the cloak, he didn’t have a shirt and there were several tattoos running across his arms and over his torso. Before Cerin could see what the images are Uri stood up taller and shifted his shoulders. Right before his eyes, a pair of wings unfolded from Uri’s back. “I was born with these wings. They are the reason why I am down here; the Church believes that I am an abomination. They wanted to kill me, but the King, my father, wouldn’t allow it. So as a ‘compromise’ they threw me down here, telling me that it would be better if my ‘cursed presence’ stayed far away from other people. I would understand if you would prefer that I keep them under the cloak, they are quite ugly...” Uri looked down and appeared to brace himself for something but then-

“They’re beautiful.” Cerin breathed out in wonder. They were the most beautiful things Cerin had ever seen. Jet black and several spans longer than Uri’s arms the wings were beautiful. They looked ethereal, like the stained glass pictures in the church windows, graceful, perfect and otherworldly. Reaching out on instinct to touch them, Cerin just barely stopped himself before he asked “Can I- can I touch them? Please?”

Shocked Uri hesitantly nodded his head and extended his right wing toward the boy. Staring in awe at the wing Cerin gingerly stroked it. It’s so soft! Cerin looked up at Uri and beamed brightly. Seeing that the child wasn’t repulsed by his wings Uri smiled back, relieved. Cerin once again stroked the wing relishing its softness. The feathers on the wing ranged from the length of Cerin’s pinky finger to the length of his forearm. All of the feathers were a glossy black that reminded Cerin of staring deep into a well during twilight. Without a thought Cerin rubbed his cheek against the feathers, sighing softly at the texture. Then, Uri chuckled under his breath. Flustered Cerin blushed a bright pink, the blush going all the way up to his ears.

After a short but awkward silence, they both burst out laughing. After they had recovered their voices they exchanged some small talk, Cerin’s fingers never truly leaving Uri’s wings. The boy absentmindedly petted and groomed the feathers while they talked. They talked for hours until Uri yawned loudly. After checking that Cerin was okay with it, Uri joined the child on the fur bed, rearranging the furs to fit two people comfortably. “I didn’t sleep well last night. Not because of you, I just get insomnia often. Do you mind if I rest here for a while? I probably won’t be able to sleep, just doze, so speak up if you need anything. We can talk when I get a few winks” When Cerin acceded Uri leaned against the stone wall and closed his eyes for a while.

The silence wasn’t heavy or oppressive but warm and companionable. It was... nice.

Part 3:  
“It is always calm before the storm.” -Unknown author/common phrase

The next two weeks passed by in a blur of silence, sleep, and peace. The wound on Uri’s head and the lacerations of his feet healed slowly but surely. Every morning Uri would check to see if anything fell down the hole before making breakfast. Uri had a surprising amount of food stored in the hole, mostly dried meat and nuts. Since it was the middle of the winter Uri always had a small fire going to keep them warm, and during the colder hours they would huddle under the furs and sleep. They would talk about their lives and reminisce about the times when their lives were better.

Cerin learned that Uri’s mother had hair the same raven black color as Uri’s wings. He learned about the wonders of the sea, and the joy the man got from sailing on it when he was young. He learned about the first time Uri’s father said “I love you” as a lie. He learned that Uri yearned for the sky with such a fierce longing that sometimes he would just sit under the ceiling hole and stare into the brightness, crying.

Uri learned that Cerin’s eyes were the same crystal bluish green as Cerin’s deceased father’s eyes. He learned that the child knew one hundred plants that you can find in the forest that are edible, but couldn’t read because his step-father didn’t want to teach him. He learned that Cerin’s favorite pastime was swimming, and that sometimes the boy would sneak out in the dead of the night to go to the lake and swim. Uri learned that Cerin’s love of swimming was the reason why he was out at night when the storm that drove him to Uri’s hole came.

They both learned they both had a shared hatred and love of the Darkness.

**Flashback**

_It was dark in the cabinet that Cerin had crammed himself into. Outside of the thin cabinet door, he could hear the heavy footsteps of his step-father’s boots, and the clink of the beer bottle he carried hitting the wall every time the old man stumbled. Cerin squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to block out his step-father’s voice._

_“Where are you, you god-damned brat! I am gonna to kill you!”_

_“Darling please calm don-” Slap_

_“You don’t tell me what to do! I am the man of this house and if it weren’t for my money you and your stinking brat would be stuck out on the streets! Now tell me where he is!” A heavy thud echoed through the floor boards as Cerin’s step-father threw Cerin’s mother to the floor._

_“I don’t know! Please, please darling I really don’t know.”_

_“Why I oughta-” Unable to take it anymore Cerin burst out of his hiding place and screamed “Don’t hurt Mother!”_

_“Cerin!_

_“So that is where you were hiding. You’re just like your pathetic father, afraid of his own shadow and barely a man.”_

_“Take that back! Father was a good man!” Cerin lashed out and tried to kick his step-father. Sneering the old man swung the beer bottle at Cerin’s head and he knew no more._

_I should have stayed in the Darkness._

**Flashback end**

\---

On the second day of the third week that Cerin stayed with Uri Cerin’s health took a turn for the worse. One of the cuts on his foot got infected and Cerin came down with a high fever. Uri did what he could to help the child, constantly making tea and trying to make soup, but the infection swept through Cerin’s body. 

By the third day of the infection, Cerin could no longer get out of the pile of furs that they used for bedding. 

On the fifth day, Cerin woke up to Uri kneeling on the ground next to him crying softly. The almost angel looked heartbreakingly sad and he couldn’t stop crying. 

“I’m sorry, I am so, so sorry Cerin. I’m so sorry,” Uri sobbed. 

Cerin sat up and tried to console him but then he looked down. He could see his body lying on the ground surrounded by furs, looking deathly pale. 

_I died? Oh no, poor Uri._

\---

For a second Uri thought he heard something coming from above. He looked up and there was a transparent and aethereal image of Cerin. The image smiled and mouthed slowly _“Don’t be sad, Uri.”_ And the man could no longer bring himself to cry.

\---

One day in the future, a boy with black hair with raven wings and a boy with blue eyes and soft white wings, both about six summers, would meet. The black haired boy would be sitting in a tall oak tree, staring at the sky. The blue-eyed boy would be running home when he would spot the other boy. Smiling, the cherub-like child would run over to the tree and call up “What is your name?”. 

The raven child would look down and softly reply “Aza.” 

Beaming, the white-winged one would proclaim “It is nice to meet you Aza! My name is Rin! Do you want to play?”

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Uri means "my light, my flame"  
> Cerin means "little dark one"  
> Aza means "comfort" and is a shortened version of Azazel  
> Rin means "joy" and is a short form of Cerin


End file.
